Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1887-03-09
FAMOUS FASTERS.
Persons Wdo Supported Life on
Water for Many Days.
fae simple Diet on Which IA En9llshman
Supported a1i Preserved I.lfe-Ths
Italian Fasters of To-day Out
dols bJ May Pcrsoni.

| lIt OrocS w lnSlOW. IN R1ll MAIL 0f0zette.l
The great publicity given to the question
of fasting now before the world, excited
oy recent successful and unsuccessful at
tempts 10 sustain life. has induced me TO
state few facts not generally known in
reference to this matter That life can be
| supported and preserved and the ordinary
! duties performed on a diet comparatively
simple and limited in amount, is an al.
mltted truth and accepted by most persons
who have investigated it. In ITi9 there
lived certain Thomas Wood, born Of in
temperate parents. Up to the age of forty
he indulged him selfto excess in meats of
fatty nature and in large quantities OF
those articles Of diet containing fatty in
gradients, such as cheese, butter and
sugar, his beverage being strong ale. lie
gradually developed into a man OF enor-
nous dimen sions. and complication after
complication Of disorders arising day by
day, he became alarmed at the inevitable,
which stared him in the face. He
gradually cut down his diet by de-
grees, dimin ishing his beer to begin with,
and then those diets containing sugar,
ana also animal flesh. He ultimately al
lowed himself only pudding made of sea
biscuit. With this change of food all his
symptoms disappeared, he became meta
Dorphosed from monster into man
once again. The curious fact is that he
abstained from all drink Of whatever de-
scription. The "sea pudding" was COM
posed as follows: threa pints of sl1imme
milk; this being boiled, was poured on one
pound of sea biscuit broken into pieces.
This compound being boiled in cloth for
two hours, it became pudding Of sum.
cient consistency to be cut with knife,
and on this alone he subsisted for two
an c,nla sl,
an absence of all those disagreeablo symp-
toms before mentioned The quantity
taken was ~ pounds at five o'clock in the
morning as his breakfast, and the same
quantity at noon for dinner; after this
hour he abstaine1 from all food until the
next day. The case of Wood is beyond all
doubt, as two clergymen, two doctors and
the church warden in the parish where he
lived all ties titled to the truth Of the facts
Tracing the history up Of fasters, we
come upon that of John Brown, miner in
Ayrshire. He lived buried in q coal mine
without swallowing any thing but small
quantities Of chalybeate water sucked
through straw, this being sufficient to
sustain life in a contaminated atmosphere,
the nervous excitability being thus dimin.
ished, and thus mitigating the cravings of
hunger. This is a most interesting case,
and bears comparison at the present time
with the Italian fasters and their wonder
full drinks. At Liege some colliers were
shut up in pit for twenty-four days, and
sustained their lives with water alone
from fountain. Experiments were made
and the water analyZed. 1t was found to
contain upon evaporation nothing extraor-
dinary, and only lime, or what is called
"calx.' The same constituent Is supposed
to have existed in the fluid which support
ed John Ecown, as before alluded to. Why
should this not be the same in the case OF
the Ialianss-water impregnated with
lime suspended in solution. only give If
as theory, and l think cor.
rect one. Elizabeth Woodcock, in
1893, lived eight days on snow water.
Cecilia Steers, in 1920, lived fifteen days
also on snow water alone. This came from
well thirty feet deep, and which had
been made for the purpose of obtaining
chalk. Here VIC have another instance OF
the "calX." In 1865 we read of three
women IN Italy, buried fer thirty-seyen
days in the snow, living on snow water
also impregnated with lime. In f795 a
Yorkshire gentleman, aged sixty, abso-
lutely was incapacitated from taking food
for thirty-sX days. When in health he
weighed two hundred and forty pounds,
and on the thirty-second day of his fast he
was reduced to one hundred and thirty
eight pounds in weight. DR. william re-
iates case OF an abstainer living seventy
two days without nourishment, on which
day he died exhausted. He livod only on
water favored with orange-juice. Henry
Welby, in 1887, for forty years, though of
great wealth, never tasted either fish,
flesh or fowl. He died at the ripe old age
of eighty-four. During the whole of his
retirement his chief food was oatmeal
Cruel and a salad of cool herbs.
The longest time recorded in the annals
OF physic in which man existed without
food was sixty-one days, the case being
that OF young man driven mad from
overwork. Alexander Benedictus mentions
case at Venice where a man lived forty.
six days without food. The history Of
France states that Louis the Pious, Elm.
peror OF France, who died in so, existed
forty days without food or drink Al
6ertus Magnus gives US the record of a
woman of Cologne, who lived for seven
weeks only on water. 1t is said tngt Dom
ocritus lived to the age of one hundred
and nine years, and that in the latter part
of his life, for forty days, he lived on
smelling honey and hot bread Raulin re-
Ates another case where fifty-two DAYS of
fasting took place on water alone. Tho
Medical Gazette for July, 1888, contains two
remarkable instances; one of these a
patient, is stated to have lived six years
without swallowing any food, the mouth
being occasionally moistened with water.
tea, or whey, which was not swallowed,
but spat out In the other case, which was
originally recorded by Prof Ricei, of
Turin, an inability to take food existed for
three years. There are many traditions in
in all histories relating to the means EN-
ployed by various individuals TO support
life during danger and privation.
The manuscript department at the Brit
ish Museum contains quaint description
OF the fasting OF Jane Hodges (Sloan MS.
4slD. She lived in the year 1850. She
suffered from historical aphonia and
neither ate nor drank for nine weeks, so it
is reported. She was under delusion,
and stated that "she tasted for the sins
of the People, and that she was the savior
OF the nations" She ultimately rccoy-
cred and took food. In 1879 we read Of the
Lancashire fasting girl" Ellen Sud
worth, aged eleven. This is, however, not
one of clear abstaining from solid food, as
the lived on liquids and SOUPS. We now
come to DIR. Tanner, the American physi-
clan, who in 1880 commenced his fast of
forty days. duration. He apparently COM
pleted this, and was stated to have bene-
fitted to the extent Of 100 by it as a
commercial speculation.